Coming Out
by RainyDays-and-DayDreams
Summary: Sherlock and John navigate the media frenzy that surrounds them after they release the news of their relationship to the world. Johnlock, if it wasn't obvious.


**_A/N: This is set in the same universe as my 30 Day OTP Challenge, Love Everlasting. Knowledge is not needed or required to understand this, but it may prove useful towards understanding some of the references._**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sherlock. Sadly. And I don't think applying for adoption rights would do me much good at this point.**

_Dedicated to my dear Sherlock ADD Buddy, Anonymoustache. Thanks for giving me feedback, and being awesome in general. ;)_

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><p>John and Sherlock, when they had first come out, were mainly hit with positive feedback. There were negative bits, of course, but overall, the experience wasn't too bad.<p>

Their personal friends and colleagues were the first to find out, of course. After the infamous crime scene incident, the news spread through the NSY like wildfire. And Mrs. Hudson found out when John and Sherlock sat down and told her. Molly... Well, Molly had found out when she had accidentally walked in on Sherlock and John kissing in the middle of the morgue. (To this day, John insists Sherlock knew Molly was coming and pulled him into a kiss right then to tell her about them without telling her, because otherwise he would've never kissed him in the middle of a bloody morgue. Sherlock doesn't say anything, but he knows John is right.) Mycroft found out about it before even Sherlock and John were aware of the shift in their relationship, back when they were at the hospital and Sherlock was holding John's hand. Angelo found out when John no longer objected to him putting a candle at their table.

Eventually, everyone they knew personally became aware. Sherlock and John were content to leave it like that for a while- their lives were enough of a media circus without the intimate details of their relationship making the front page of the tabloids daily. (Lord knew their typical escapades did.) It provided them with a small amount of privacy in their otherwise crazy lives.

But keeping secrets took its toll, and when one was keeping a secret from the media that hounded you non-stop, the toll was a drastic one. The downsides began to outweigh the benefits of such secret-keeping, which is how John and Sherlock found themselves having this particular discussion.

"I'm sick of this," John announced suddenly, flinging his newspaper to the ground next to him, standing up abruptly.

Sherlock continued to stare at his laptop, unperturbed by his lover's outburst. He'd deduced what was going to happen ten minutes ago. "Yes?" he asked, scrolling through the current article he was reading.

"Dammit, Sherlock, look at me!" John growled. Sherlock slowly looked up from his laptop.

"I'm presuming this about the incident outside the restaurant earlier?" he asked.

John growled with frustration and shook his head. "Yes, Sherlock! I can't keep doing this! Hiding the truth from everyone is hurting us!"

Sherlock thought back to what had occurred earlier that day. He and John had been at a restaurant, enjoying themselves, and John had just been about to kiss Sherlock when an excited voice interrupted them.

"Hey, you're that detective!"

Sherlock groaned as he pulled back.

The teen was looking at them with wide eyes. "Were you two about to-?"

"No, no," John said, shaking his head and smiling, even though Sherlock could see how strained the smile was.

They left the restaurant five minutes later, after talking for the girl for a few minutes. Sherlock noticed that John seemed tense on the way back to the flat.

Sherlock was quite literally shaken back into the present by John's hands shaking his shoulders. "Sherlock?" John asked. "Did you hear a thing I just said?"

Sherlock shook his head, as if to clear away stray thoughts. "What? Oh, yes," he said, leaning back into the couch. "I agree, the current arrangement is inconvenient, to say the least." He steepled his hands underneath his chin, in his typical thinking pose, and closed his eyes.

"Well?" John asked.

"If you want to, you can make some sort of announcement online, though your blog or something."

John looked at Sherlock skeptically. "Really?"

Sherlock sighed, giving John his don't-be-an-idiot-of-course-I'm-being-serious look.

John leaned down and kissed Sherlock on the forehead, grinning at Sherlock's disgruntled expression. "Thank you," he said, serious.

Sherlock grunted in reply.

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><p>John took a deep, shuddering breath before he hit the "Post Entry" button on his blog.<p>

_Your post has now been posted._

_No going back now_, he mused, before shutting the laptop closed and leaning back in his chair.

He sat like that for a moment, wondering how long they had left before their lives exploded.

Only a moment, though, because there was a suspicious smell coming from the kitchen that John was 90% certain Sherlock had something to do with, and that required investigation.

* * *

><p>John made the mistake of checking his email ten minutes later.<p>

Which made his phone freeze. He'd received over two hundred comments in ten minutes.

He shut his phone down, and waited for the inevitable media frenzy.

* * *

><p>"John? Sherlock?"<p>

Mrs. Hudson's voice came floating up the stairs, her slow hobbling due to her hip announcing who she was, if her question hadn't.

When she finally reached the flat, she looked at the two of them, who were currently lounging lazily on the couch, phones turned off and on the other side of the room, television set unplugged from the wall.

She frowned at them. "There's a crowd of reporters outside the door," she said. "Is it because of the post you made, John, dear?"

Sherlock turned his head toward her, somehow managing to do so without hurting his neck as John laid on top of him. "It would be safe to assume that," he said, before turning his head back to the way it was before.

"I'll tell them to go away," Mrs. Hudson said, before beginning her descent down the stairs once more.

John took pity on her. They wouldn't leave, no matter what she said.

* * *

><p>John had been expecting a media outcry, but this was ridiculous.<p>

He and Sherlock had been trapped in the flat for more than a day, and John needed to get more food. In retrospect, he probably should've done the shopping before he made the announcement on his blog.

Eventually it had been deemed safe to turn the television on, and that is how they discovered, much to their bemusement, that they had started trending on twitter, had almost crashed tumblr (John was sure the Watson's Wenches were having a field day), and that they had been featured in at least two major news stations, and several more international ones.

And that it seemed as if every single reporter in London was lined up outside their door.

John, with nothing to do, eventually sat down and began to look at the comments on his blog.

And was overwhelmed.

He had received thousands of comments, from all over the world. Most were congratulations, a few were "I-bloody-knew-it"s, and there were the occasional homophobic comments.

This threw John for a loop. He knew homophobia existed- all he needed to do was think of his sister's experiences- but what confused him was the support he was receiving. Every single homophobic commented had immediately been shot down by people who supported him, who backed him up. That.. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. He was grateful, though, that people who had no idea who he was were standing up for him.

Then he began to read the actual comments themselves.

And started laughing.

Sherlock, who had been in the kitchen (John had approved this particular experiment, because it did not involve fire) raised his eyebrows at John's sudden outburst. "John?" he asked, slipping off his gloves before padding towards the other man.

He frowned when he saw what John was reading.

"John," he asked slowly, "How is that amusing?"

John stopped giggling long enough to look at Sherlock. "Just," he said, gesturing toward the screen, "She's trying to insult us and failing miserably. And she's making a total arse out of herself in the process."

Sherlock frowned and re-read the bit he could see again.

"John," he said, "She called us slurs for gay men at least four times in this same paragraph, accused us of hating women, and told us that we are embarrassments to the human race." He raised a questioning eyebrow at the shorter man, who was still chuckling.

Once he had calmed down, he turned to Sherlock, and, by way of explanation, said, "It's just... The ridiculousness of this comment shows how stupid she is, and how wrong she is." He shrugged, and added, "The only other option is to get really angry, and that's not the right way to handle someone like this."

Sherlock pushed his eyebrows together with confusion. "But you have gotten angry at people who say less-than-flattering things on your blog before," he said.

John grinned, then scrolled down, and waved the arrow at the huge amount of comments under that one, which thoroughly tore the lady (and her argument) to shreds. "People are already angry for us," he said, grinning.

Sherlock stared at the laptop for a minute, before getting up again and going back to his experiment, deeming the antics of the readers of John's blog less important than his experiment.

John kept giggling.

* * *

><p>Eventually, they knew, they'd have to come out and face the music.<p>

So John made another blog post, which thanked everybody for their overwhelming support, and everything that was expected for him to say, and said that he would answer any questions through his blog, but he and Sherlock wouldn't be doing any interviews.

John's blog crashed again in a few hours due to the overwhelming amount of comments and hits he was getting. The reporters outside slowly went away as they realized that John and Sherlock were sticking to their word.

Eventually, Sherlock and John left the flat.

Of course, the few reporters who were still there immediately went mental.

Somehow, John and Sherlock managed to make it through the crowd of reporters and into a cab.

So began their experience with the world knowing about their relationship.

* * *

><p>After a while, things began to calm down once more.<p>

The reporters slowly trickled away, and John answered a seemingly never-ending list of questions on his blog. By the end of the week, it was old news.

John and Sherlock couldn't say they weren't relieved.

A few days later, Sherlock and John lay on the couch, enjoying each other's presence and watching crap telly.

"It was-"

"Don't." John shushed his love. He continued to watch the television, not enraptured, but mildly interested.

Sherlock sighed, reaching for the remote before turning the television off. "Honestly, John," he huffed, settling back down next to John.

"Hey!" John protested mildly. "I was watching that!"

Sherlock laughed, putting his head on John's chest. "That show," he began, "was the dullest, most-"

John sighed, cutting Sherlock off. "Yes, I get it," he said, settling as comfortably as he could with six feet of lanky consulting detective lying on top of him.

A few minutes later, John spoke up again. "I like it better now."

Sherlock hummed in reply, a question.

"Now that we've come out. We can do things together in public and not have to be careful."

Sherlock hummed in agreement, slowly drifting off into sleep on his army doctor's chest.

When sleep took them both, they were both happy with their current lot in life.

**Fin**

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><p><em><strong>Rainy's Ramble: For those unaware, I ramble at the bottom of my stories. This is not required of you to read, so you can leave now if you want, but if you do, please leave me a review! Thanks, and I love you.<strong>_

_**Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a horrible person. I know I promised I would post a prompt-fill next. I am actually working on a prompt-fill, and have most of it planned out, and about a third of it written. But this idea struck when I saw somebody standing up to hate-reviewers on this very website, and the idea would not leave me alone. I try to sit down and do some research on flowers for my current prompt-fill (when I post it you'll understand), and this comes out instead. I decided to roll with it.**_

_**Okay, and I have also rediscovered why I hate waiting long periods of time before posting things. Insecurity and doubt starts to creep into my mind, and I am currently waging an internal battle within myself on whether or not to post this, because there is a voice in my head screaming "THIS SUCKS THEY'LL HATE IT THEY'LL HATE YOU THEY'LL NEVER READ ANOTHER THING YOU WRITE EVER AGAIN YOU'RE HORRIBLE AT WRITING AND LIFE AND SHOULD JUST GIVE UP ALREADY AND SAVE THEIR EYES THE TORMENT OF READING THIS SHIT". **_

_**Did I mention I have self-esteem issues? **_

_**So, if this actually doesn't suck, please leave me a review and let me know. Every kind review I get helps me silence that internal voice, at least for a little bit.**_

**_So, life. Mock Trial competitions are coming up, and I have practice nearly every day after school. Welcome to Night Vale released a new episode yesterday, and I am in love with the weather. I can finally rant about season three (I livestreamed all the episodes as they aired in England), but I shan't. Why not? Because I'm too lazy to put a spoiler alert. Just let me say: OH. MY. GOD. I think I died at least seven times during each episode, ESPECIALLY HLV. That's right- you are now speaking to the extra-concentrated ghost of Rainy._**

**_OOOH! And I went to the live Welcome to Night Vale show in LA on the 25th. It was awesome. And one of the guests there, a famous actress, called my cosplay as a hooded figure "nice". I think I actually swooned. _**

**_Other than that, there's not much to report. Well, nothing that can be released to you guys yet, anyways. I have a few planned projects in the works.. but I am not yet able to release details. Soon, my minions. Soon._**

**_Oh, and I'd like to give a big shout-out to Hungrysherlock-wink for ruining milk for me forever. I haven't drunken it in over a week, and I used to drink it daily. Thanks for that. (I suppose it's only fair, seeing as she is still unable to use her umbrella after that fic I sent her... but really, ruining food for me? That's low. Although, in retaliation, I sent her a fic which may or may not have ruined cake for her as well... So all is well again, I suppose.)_**

**_I should probably go now. Please review. Please._**

**_Goodnight, or good morning, _**

**_Love, RainyDays-and-DayDreams_**

**_P.S. Interesting sidenote- it is actually in canon that there is a tumblr page, dedicated entirely to John, which is run by Watson's Wenches. This interesting bit of trivia is found in The Sherlock Files by Guy Adamas, the official companion to the show, which is not only very informative but highly amusing. Not only do you learn the bit about the tumblr page through the sticky notes John and Sherlock leave each other on nearly every page, but that Sherlock does, actually, have a sock index, that the skull's name is Billy, that Sherlock reads women's magazines, that John has considered making a mind palace (but would start small- a mind bungalow, perhaps), that the reason they're always out of milk is because Sherlock uses it for mould experiments, and that Mrs. Hudson has banned Sherlock from flushing body parts down the toilet (apparently, he has tried that before). Then there's the added hilarity of their banter, which is priceless. Just- just check it out, okay? (And no, Sherlock, it isn't a scrapbook.)_**


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